05Claremont COURIER 5-16-14

EDUCATION Claremont COURIER/Friday, May 16, 2014 5

specifications, the new mobile center re-places the city’s previous 11-year-old unitthat was sold to the Calexico Police De-partment in 2012.

The new 53-foot, four-slide trailerhouses a fully operational emergency op-eration unit, complete with a dispatch cen-ter that allows interoperability with otherlocal, state and county agencies whenstaffed.

The impressive mobile unit is also out-fitted with two pneumatic masts; one forlights and one for radio frequency equip-ment and is equipped with a conferenceroom complete with television monitors,touch screen computers as well as anaudio/video system that permits the userto play any display on the monitors insideor outside the command post.

“It’s state-of-the-art,” Captain Trabersays. “Technology will always evolve anddevelop, but we’ve got the systems thatwill meet our needs. Even during thecourse of the build, there were improve-ments in technology so we were able tomake upgrades.”

At nearly 19 feet, the largest of the fourslides accommodates a management areawith seats for the school district, collegestaff, fire department, Red Cross, or any-one else that may be needed as part of anEmergency Operation Center activation.This designated area, in addition to theconference room, will provide plenty ofworkspace for emergency personnel.

“It will seat 33 people with lots of roomto comfortably move around. I think 40-50 people could operate in here rathercomfortably,” says Captain Traber.

Keeping it all running without inter-ruption is a 56 Kilowatt generator thatpowers the air conditioning and heatingunits as well as the communications andelectronics systems with additional powerto spare for other applications.

“Without the air conditioner on, thegenerator will last one week or longer.

During hot weather, with the air set onmaximum, about 5 to 7 days,” says Cap-tain Traber.

As you may imagine, a mobile com-munications center of this caliber doesn’tcome cheap. The 53-foot trailer and thetruck used to transport it cost nearly $2million. Funding was made possible by acombination of state and federal grants,some in-house money as well as dona-tions from the Claremont Unified SchoolDistrict and the Claremont Colleges.

The new communications center ismeant to take the place of the police de-partment’s previous Emergency Opera-tion Center (EOC) located in the CitrusRoom above city hall. According to Cap-tain Traber, public safety standards dictatethat central services buildings need to berated one and a half times code. Clare-mont City Hall does not fulfill that re-quirement.

“In the event an earthquake, if it chal-lenged or compromised any part of cityhall and they had to close it down, wewouldn’t have a functional EOC.”

Deployment of the mobile center in anemergency would be evaluated independ-ently based on the location of the eventand severity of the damage. If the eventwere citywide, the unit would most likelyremain at the police station or pre-deployto Claremont High School, which servedas an EOC headquarters during the 2003Grand Prix fire.

The Metrolink station, with its ampleparking, is also another possibility.

In the event of a large-scale crisis out-side of Claremont’s city limits, policewould make the mobile communicationscenter available to those cities and serv-ices in need.

“Part of the grant money stipulated thatwe make it available to local, regional oreven statewide agencies if they needed it.The reason why we have a day cab on thetruck is so we could send our trained staff(probably a driver and an IT guy) to gowhere the trailer is needed to help setthose systems up,” Captain Traber ex-plained. “Once set up, they can retreat tothe day cab and be around to help if those

inside needed technical assistance, but notget in the way of the people actually run-ning the EOC.”

Captain Traber plans on training asmany of the department’s existing per-sonnel as possible, which would providesome flexibility in who operates the trailerin the event of an emergency. Two offi-cers with Class A licenses have alreadybeen designated to drive the unit and theyare also familiar with erecting the floorsand the slide-outs.

Setting up the mobile center’s redun-dant communications systems has beentime consuming but the captain is opti-mistic that the entire unit will be up andrunning by June 1.

“We’re still working on the technicalsystems. We have a couple guys on ourstaff working on that and when that’sdone, we’ll be training additional staff toget the technical system set up,“ says Cap-tain Traber.

“Once established, we’d like those tofunction as a second police station if weneeded it to.”

Overall, Claremont residents and citystaff should be pleased with the additionof the department’s new mobile commu-nications center, despite its imposing pres-ence and hefty price tag.

“I think given the fact that we got fund-ing from federal grants, state grants andcooperative money from the school dis-trict and the colleges, there was minimalimpact on the city’s budget,” says Lieu-tenant Mike Ciszek. “For the amount ofmoney that the city put in, to get what wegot is definitely a return on their invest-ment.”

City residents and visitors interested intouring the mobile communications cen-ter will be presented with that opportunityduring Claremont’s 66th Annual Fourthof July Celebration and Festival where itis scheduled to make its debut as the leadvehicle in the Independence Day parade.

—Angela Baileynews@claremont-courier.com

Sumner educator takes Teacher of the Year honors

COURIER photo/Steven FelschundneffThird grade teacher Debbie Plumley helps KatelynMiller with her project during an art class on Wednes-day at Sumner Elementary School. During last week’sCUSD Board of Education meeting Ms. Plumley wasnamed the 2013-2014 Teacher of the Year.

COURIER photo/Steven FelschundneffThe Claremont Police Department’s new mobile emergency command center is 53feet long and is towed by a full-size semi truck cab. Because of its size, a class Adriver’s license is required to move the center. Two police staff members have ob-tained the correct license, according to Captain Jon Traber.

MOBILE CENTER/continued from previous page

At the Thursday, May 1 gathering ofthe Claremont Unified School Dis-trict Board of Education, local edu-

cator Debbie Plumley received somemuch-deserved recognition.

Ms. Plumley, who teaches third grade at Sumner Ele-mentary School, was recognized as the district’s 2014Teacher of the Year.

There is a longstanding tradition of colleagues pullingthe wool over the winners’ eyes when it comes to the pres-entation of this coveted award. Ms. Plumley, who was toldanother Sumner teacher had earned the accolade, attendedthe meeting expecting to cheer for a colleague.

The longtime Claremont teacher, who admits, “This isnot my forte, to be in the spotlight,” said she was surprisedand a bit abashed to learn that the kudos were actuallyhers.

TEACHER OF THE YEAR/page 18